ELECTIVES MAKING A COMEBACK

Jeffrey Steele. Special to the TribuneCHICAGO TRIBUNE

About five years ago, budget cuts forced the Joliet Township High Schools to eliminate one of their two choir director positions. Parents and students weren't pleased by the move, and grass-roots campaigns soon were launched to try to convince the school board to reinstate the position.

Among the activists was Jason Meister, a 1997 Joliet High School Central graduate, now majoring in directing and theater at Millikin University in Decatur.

"It was a bad issue for me," said Meister, now 19. "I knew the choir director personally. It was hard on her because she had to travel between the two schools. And it was hard on students as well because they couldn't reach her at certain times of the day--and because you couldn't have choir classes throughout the day, which limited the number of students who could take choir."

Meister wrote an editorial for the school newspaper on the need for another choir director and attended meetings of the board of Joliet Township High School District 204. He drew up petitions signed by hundreds of students and parents and petitioned the board to present his case at a meeting.

Helping Meister's goal become reality was voter approval of a 1995 referendum proposal, which provided funds for restoration of the position and for other upgrades in arts programs, said James Clark, district superintendent.

"The 1995 referendum was a trade," he said. "It was a phase-in over three years. As principal and interest on a bond for renovations to school buildings were retired, money went into the education fund that would have gone into the bond fund. The result has been about $5 million to the high schools."

In addition to approval of the referendum proposal, Clark said, about $500,000 a year has been provided for the last four years by the City of Joliet from a gaming tax.

Last year, a second choir teacher was hired, and there now are choir programs at both Joliet High School West and Central campuses. Art classrooms at both campuses have received new furniture, cabinetry and lighting, and a room at the West campus has been refitted as a dance studio with mirrors and bars. The district already had art and dance teachers.

The Joliet high schools aren't alone in celebrating a restoration of programs. Other Illinois school districts say they have rebounded from budget cuts in the 1980s and early '90s that forced them to trim electives and extracurricular programs.

In the Joliet district, further reinstatements are being contemplated, Clark said.

"Currently, Central students go to West for orchestra classes," he said. "The idea would be to add at least a part-time orchestra teacher at Central if enrollment in the orchestra classes continues to increase."

Joliet Central vocal music instructor David Jones, who was hired to fill the reinstated choir director post at the start of the 1997-98 school year, said having a second choir director has been a boon for students.

"Based on the comments of students who were here the year before I came, they see a lot more opportunity," he said."

Nancy Cardwell, vocal music instructor at Joliet West, agreed.

"It has doubled the opportunity for participation by the kids," she said. "It has allowed Dave and me to add choirs. There are now two swing choirs--performance groups that go out into the community--rather than one."

Although Meister graduated before the choir director position was reinstated, he is delighted that his campaign helped influence the decision.

In Illinois, the only state that still requires daily physical education, budget constraints in elementary and high school districts often have meant cutting the number of music or art teachers, resulting in reductions in fine arts programs such as band, choir or art.

"It seems that the arts and foreign languages are always the areas looked at first when school districts are caught in a fiscal crisis," said Brad Woodruff, division administrator for secondary education with the Illinois State Board of Education in Springfield. "The school code specifies that the arts be taught. But it doesn't say what, or how much of what, is involved."

In some districts, he said, cutbacks have come in extracurricular athletic activities, such as interscholastic team sports. But unlike some other states, "there has been no cutback on physical education in the state. That's a state mandate, that physical education be daily and for all students."

However, school districts can receive approval to double physical education every other day. Some districts also have received waivers from the state board or the General Assembly that enable them not to offer physical education on a daily basis, either so they can provide other courses, because of inadequate facilities or because they wish to offer remediation courses instead for those who need them, said Shelley Helton, principal planning consultant in the research and policy division of the state board.

Districts also can exempt particular students for a variety of reasons, including participation in interscholastic sports programs or marching band.

One major reason electives have been trimmed this decade in many districts is a shift in educational priorities to math, science and other core curriculum courses.

"We hear from employers, from colleges and universities, about the deficits of students nationwide: weak writing skills, poor mathematics skills," said Powhatan Collins, director of the high school reorganization department of the Chicago Public Schools. "We do see a need to focus on courses to allow students to go on to higher education or directly to the workplace."

Electives in some Chicago high schools were trimmed in two waves, one 10 to 12 years ago and another five or six years ago. In Collins' opinion, 1993 was the low point.

"Since then, we've tried to come back, but we want to be sensible and try to prepare students for all areas of educational experience," he said. "We still have the same arts requirement we've had for the past 20 years. Every student to graduate must have one year of art and one year of music."

In Chicago public elementary schools, a half-time art or music teacher is funded in schools with fewer than 750 pupils and a full-time teacher in schools with 750 or more.

"There have been no cutbacks in the past 10 years in the funding," said Beverly Tunney, president of the Chicago Principals and Administrators Association. "(The schools) can opt for any type of arts teacher they choose."

Despite the lack of cutbacks, she said, "under this current administration, funding has not been increased, so as salaries go up, you can buy (fewer) teachers."

For school districts statewide grappling with tight budgets, good news may be on the horizon.

"School funding (from the state) is up a bit from where it was a couple years ago," Woodruff said. "There's optimism that education is going to be a priority for the next governor."

Downstate Pawnee School District 11, near Springfield, also has emerged from budget shortfalls that forced it to eliminate staff. The district, which has an elementary and high school, was hit with a budget crunch about 15 years ago, resulting in the loss of a couple fine arts teacher positions.

A drive to gain reinstatement of the positions came from parents, students and staff, said Don Burton, superintendent.

"We've done nothing but add for the last six to eight years. We now have an elementary art program and two computer room coordinators in completely new labs, one in the elementary school and one in the high school. We've expanded our band (program) back to full time, which had been trimmed to three-quarters time in the cuts. We've reinstated our band teacher to full time and added a choral teacher."

The additions have been possible because of a good economy, a higher corporate replacement tax and residents seeing the need for arts education, Burton said.

"But they still don't look at the fine arts program with the same priority as math, science, English and social studies."

The picture also is brighter at Queen Bee District 16 in Glendale Heights, which has a primary, intermediate and middle school attended by 2,150 pupils. Staff cuts in the late 1980s and early 1990s resulted in less time devoted to fine arts per week for all grade levels, said James White, superintendent.

"Subsequent to that, in 1993, we passed a referendum that gave us the funds to re-establish the programs that were trimmed," he said. "Money is still a problem. We're the poorest district in DuPage (County). But we'd rather struggle and borrow and keep a full range of programs for our kids. The school board and administration of Queen Bee schools believe that these non-core subjects are necessary . . . to provide a well-rounded education."